Mainframe Lead 

Location: Philadelphia, PA / Pittsburgh, PA
Experience: 15+ Years

Job Summary

We are seeking a highly experienced Mainframe Lead with 15+ years of overall experience and strong hands-on expertise in COBOL, CICS, DB2, and VSAM.

This is a Lead-level position, requiring a combination of hands-on mainframe application development, technical leadership, troubleshooting, solution design, and team coordination. SAS experience is highly preferred.

We are specifically looking for candidates who have operated in a Mainframe Lead / Technical Lead capacity, rather than profiles limited to individual Mainframe Developer responsibilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead the design, development, enhancement, and support of enterprise Mainframe applications.
• Develop and maintain applications using COBOL, CICS, DB2, and VSAM.
• Provide hands-on technical leadership for complex mainframe development initiatives.
• Analyze business and technical requirements and translate them into scalable mainframe solutions.
• Review application designs, code changes, and technical implementations.
• Troubleshoot complex application and production issues and lead root-cause analysis.
• Perform performance analysis and recommend application improvements.
• Coordinate development activities across onsite and offshore technical teams.
• Mentor Mainframe Developers and provide technical guidance.
• Support application releases, production deployments, and post-production activities.
• Collaborate with architects, business analysts, QA teams, infrastructure teams, and other stakeholders.
• Ensure adherence to enterprise development standards and mainframe best practices.

Required Qualifications

• 15+ years of Mainframe application development experience.
• Proven experience working as a Mainframe Lead / Technical Lead.
• Strong hands-on programming experience with COBOL.
• Strong experience with CICS.
• Strong experience with DB2.
• Strong experience working with VSAM.
• Experience designing, developing, and supporting large-scale enterprise mainframe applications.
• Strong troubleshooting and production-support experience.
• Ability to perform technical design and code reviews.
• Experience leading and mentoring development teams.
• Strong understanding of SDLC and enterprise software-development methodologies.
• Excellent analytical, communication, and stakeholder-management skills.

Preferred Skills

• SAS experience is highly preferred.
• Experience with JCL and other IBM Mainframe technologies.
• Experience with enterprise modernization or legacy transformation initiatives.
• Experience working in large, complex enterprise environments.